Archive for March, 2013

Another post commenting on Chapter 20 of Give Us a Dollar and We’ll Give You Back Four (2012-13)–now available as a $9.99 Kindle ebook or $21.95 paperback with ISBN 978-1481279161 on Amazon, along with the usual Lulu options. Note that Lulu prices for the paperback and hardback versions are now lower.

Pennsylvania’s 391 profiled libraries (another 66 omitted) are generally notvery well funded: more than three-quarters are in the bottom four spending brackets, compared to roughly 40% overall. Circulation is low, with only 31% circulating at least eight items per capita (compared to 50% overall). Patron visits are also low, with 32% reporting at least five visits per capita (compared to 54% overall). Program attendance is also somewhat low—and PC use is very low, with only 26% of libraries reporting at least one use per capita (compared to 57% overall).

Libraries by legal service area

LSA

Count

%

Outliers

700-1,149

1

0.3%

5

1,150-1,649

2

0.5%

7

1,650-2,249

7

1.8%

11

2,250-2,999

10

2.6%

7

3,000-3,999

12

3.1%

10

4,000-5,299

17

4.3%

9

5,300-6,799

32

8.2%

9

6,800-8,699

35

9.0%

1

8,700-11,099

28

7.2%

11,100-14,099

45

11.5%

1

14,100-18,499

45

11.5%

1

18,500-24,999

50

12.8%

1

25,000-34,499

37

9.5%

1

34,500-53,999

31

7.9%

2

54,000-104,999

27

6.9%

1

105,000-4.1 mill.

12

3.1%

Circulation per capita and spending per capita

Circulation per capita correlates strongly (0.60) with spending per capita.

The 123 profiled libraries in Oregon (four were omitted) are broadly distributed in terms of spending, with slightly more near the top and only two libraries in the bottom bracket. Median benefit ratios are consistently higher than 4.7 without adjusting for cost of living, 5.4 with that adjustment.

Those high benefit ratios should translate to fairly strong usage, and they do. One out of six libraries circulates 24 or more items per capita and 41% circulate 13 or more (compared to 25% overall); spending correlates with circulation. Patron visits are also fairly strong, with 44% of the libraries having seven or more visits per capita (compared to 33% overall). Program attendance is fairly typical; PC use per capita is slightly above average.

Libraries by legal service area

LSA

Count

%

Outliers

<700

8

6.5%

1

700-1,149

7

5.7%

1

1,150-1,649

1

0.8%

1,650-2,249

11

8.9%

2,250-2,999

6

4.9%

3,000-3,999

8

6.5%

4,000-5,299

3

2.4%

1

5,300-6,799

9

7.3%

6,800-8,699

5

4.1%

8,700-11,099

7

5.7%

11,100-14,099

9

7.3%

14,100-18,499

6

4.9%

18,500-24,999

13

10.6%

25,000-34,499

10

8.1%

34,500-53,999

5

4.1%

54,000-104,999

7

5.7%

1

105,000-4.1 mill.

8

6.5%

Circulation per capita and spending per capita

Circulation per capita correlates strongly (0.58) with spending per capita.

I’m tempted to say this spaghetti western (filmed in Mexico, an Italian/Mexican co-production) has continuity problems, but that would suggest more continuity than I found. It starts in the old west with a guy coming home, finding his wife and infant gone (and his wife’s horse), riding out after them, and in the ensuing gunfight (she’s ridden off with another man), everybody dying except the infant Johnny…who’s rescued by John Applebee, a curious old roving undertaker.

He grows up digging graves and wondering when the undertaker will ever cash in the receipts he gets for each body he buries—apparently at the end of the Civil War, when the government will pay him some amount for each receipt. Sometimes, when there aren’t corpses handy, Johnny helps matters along by getting into bar fights (he’s a crack shot of course). He thinks they should rob a bank so they could go build their own funeral parlor and cemetary (they mostly bury people in the desert), but Applebee doesn’t go for that.

That’s one plot. There’s also a criminal pair, combining a former New Orleans prostitute and an incompetent robber; a black deserter from the Union army; a district commissioner who’s pretty much of a criminal himself and I’m probably forgetting a plot line. Johnny is haunted by dreams of the prostitute in her glory days (which he’d never actually seen), to the point where—even though he and Applebee now have enough gold to go build that cemetary—he leaves during the night to go find her. The film more or less ends as it begins, with a set of gun battles in which almost everybody dies, certainly including our—hero?

I think the moral to the story is: Virgins shouldn’t dream of N’awlins Ladies of French descent; it will only get them into trouble.

Good points: Very good print, good cinematography, lots of scenery. Bad points: Somewhat incoherent editing, unless that’s the script, and not much in the way of acting. Maybe the missing ten minutes would make it better? Try as I might, I can’t give it more than $0.75.

I gave this piece of trash almost 45 minutes, then decided I’d rather be doing almost anything else. Seems there’s an Indian (Keema Greywolf) who’s killed a deputy and shot the sheriff because they were chasing him when he had a blowout as he was speeding, drunk, down the highway after getting married—and his wife died in the resulting rollover. And he’d earlier saved the lives of a couple of drunken rednecks (actually two drunken rednecks and their psychotic evangelical brother), so they decide to break him out. There’s banjo music when the rednecks are, variously, drinking, praising God, shooting people and driving. There’s also a bunch of racist deputies and one wisecracking ladies’ man-style deputy.

Anyway, I just couldn’t. Maybe I’m getting tougher, but I’d rather read, play video poker, work on a C&I article, stare at the ceiling, whatever. No rating.

I’d be willing to watch this again for, say, $1,000. Otherwise, forget it. I somehow own at least four copies of this garbage because Mill Creek uses it as filler on several sets: one of the few negative things I can say about Mill Creek Entertainment.

The good: great cast (Hill & Spenser, Stander as the circus head, Buono as the villain), pretty good print except for some noise over the opening titles, an unusual approach to the Spaghetti Western (most of the movie involved an Old West circus troupe, and both little people and aerialists are involved in the big final battle!), some really good cross-cutting between circus performance and other plot elements. The less good: I found the first half of the plot somewhere between bemusing and impossible to follow or discern. Maybe the eight missing minutes have something to do with that?

The second half’s clear enough: A town full of gold miners is being taken over by an evil overlord who either buys out or kills off claimholders so he can create a mining company for the whole mine area; he also takes over retail in the town. Two iconic gunmen and the traveling circus disrupt the overlord’s plans.

Another post commenting on Chapter 20 of Give Us a Dollar and We’ll Give You Back Four (2012-13)–now available as a $9.99 Kindle ebook or $21.95 paperback with ISBN 978-1481279161 on Amazon, along with the usual Lulu options. Note that Lulu prices for the paperback and hardback versions are now lower.

Most of Oklahoma’s 115 profiled libraries (one library omitted) are neither well funded nor very badly funded, with only nine libraries (8%) spending at least $43 per capita (compared to 30% overall) and only four (4%) spending less than $12. Benefit ratios are consistently above 4, even after adjusting for Oklahoma’s 88.1% cost of living.

Circulation is on the low side, with only 13% of libraries circulating at least 10 items per capita (compared to 38% overall). Patron visits are also low, mostly because only 13 libraries (11%) have at least nine visits per capita (compared to 20% overall). Program attendance is also on the low side, but PC use is strong, with 56% of the libraries having at least 1.3 uses per capita (compared to 43% overall).

Libraries by legal service area

LSA

Count

%

Outliers

<700

4

3.5%

1

700-1,149

11

9.6%

1,150-1,649

17

14.8%

1,650-2,249

9

7.8%

2,250-2,999

13

11.3%

3,000-3,999

8

7.0%

4,000-5,299

7

6.1%

5,300-6,799

9

7.8%

6,800-8,699

3

2.6%

8,700-11,099

6

5.2%

11,100-14,099

4

3.5%

14,100-18,499

7

6.1%

18,500-24,999

4

3.5%

25,000-34,499

2

1.7%

34,500-53,999

4

3.5%

54,000-104,999

2

1.7%

105,000-4.1 mill.

5

4.3%

Circulation per capita and spending per capita

Circulation per capita correlates moderately well (0.49) with spending per capita.